


Tape-Flash

by yhlee (etothey)



Category: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Consensual Sex, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-25 01:04:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17111534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etothey/pseuds/yhlee
Summary: Grant's eyes were worried.  "All your pleasure-reactions are hooked into whatshedid.  And they keep being triggered.  Maybe it's not obvious to anyone else, but it's sure as hell obvious to me.  There's no hope of unhooking the triggers, not when the damage is that deep and sorry, you have too many CIT complications muddying the waters.  But maybe it's worth teaching yourself alternative pleasures.""That," Justin said, "is the unsexiest proposal I've ever had."Thank you to opalmatrix for the beta.





	Tape-Flash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UrsulaKohl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrsulaKohl/gifts).



Sometimes, on a good day, Justin entertained the fancy that he was getting better at predicting the tape-flashes. Not that they were gone-- _that_ delusion was quite beyond him--but that he had figured out enough of the triggers to brace himself. Triggers with more specificity, that was, beyond _getting close to anyone_.

But the damage was--beyond that. Which was why he was holed up in his office staring at a subliminal matrix, the weighted distribution of elements, without seeing any of it. He'd gone out to grab a drink from the machine. Avoided anything with synthetic orange flavor. It wasn't the same as the genuine article; he knew that now. But he was wary.

The angle of light reflecting off the rim of the can had triggered something he couldn't define. He'd frozen in place. Flashed back to metal and the memory of metal, an unwanted cusp of pleasure. A knife, perhaps? The flat of a blade? He didn't have the scars for a knife, Ariane and her azi hadn't done _permanent damage_. Not that kind, anyway.

He dropped the can. Picked it up. Walked too rapidly, breathing too shallowly, back to his office with his fingers white-knuckled around the drink. Sat.

At some point he must have opened the can and drunk the contents, because there it was sitting on the desk. He reached for it, almost knocked it over because it was too light. Empty.

He didn't remember that at all.

* * *

After work, Grant showed up at Justin's office. His smile faded immediately. "Justin," he said. There was a world of _what happened now_ in his voice. Things they couldn't express, not here with Security always listening.

 _Koi pond?_ Grant asked with a lift of the eyebrows.

Justin shook his head. Maybe it would make a difference. Maybe it wouldn't. He was in no mood, at the moment, to throw crumbs at the fish.

Wordlessly, the two of them walked back through the halls and to the apartment. _Home,_ if "home" hadn't become a laughable concept in the years since Jordan and Paul had left. Grant shepherded him to the couch, pressed a hand to Justin's shoulder.

_Tape-flash?_

And it _was_ tape-flash. Justin thought--not of Grant, with his familiar red hair, but of another man, older, slim and dark. Florian. Hands moving across Justin's skin with precisely gauged pressure--

Grant was watching him. Grant already knew. Justin flushed anyway. Averted his head.

"I wonder if we've been going about this all wrong," Grant said in that careful tone Justin _hated_. The deference of an azi speaking to a Supervisor. And never mind that Grant was _Alpha_ , was a _tape designer_ whose ability was in no wise inferior to Justin's own.

"If we're going to have another Emory vs. Hauptmann debate--" Head it off at the pass.

"Well," Grant said, with a reassuring flash of humor, "we could do that if you _wanted_ \--"

Justin mimed throwing a cushion at him.

"--but that wasn't what I meant."

"Go on," Justin said when it became clear that Grant was waiting for permission. Permission, after all the things they'd undergone together.

"I think you have a worm."

Grant yelped obligingly when Justin flung the cushion at his head.

"All right," Grant said, "so I deserved that. But I'm not being entirely facetious. I've been thinking about this and thinking about this, and I'm sure I'm right. The flashes are becoming self-reinforcing."

" _That's_ your insight?" Justin said incredulously. Of course they were self-reinforcing. God knew, Ariane fucking Emory wasn't one to resort to half-measures.

Sometimes, on a very bad day, he daydreamed about having a psych-set that fit in a book--as Grant liked to say--and that he could pore over for his own keys, or set Grant to the problem. Have someone he could trust run deep-tape on him, with a guaranteed fix.

If only.

Grant's eyes were worried. "All your pleasure-reactions are hooked into what _she_ did. And they keep being triggered. Maybe it's not obvious to anyone else, but it's sure as hell obvious to me. There's no hope of unhooking the triggers, not when the damage is that deep and sorry, you have too many CIT complications muddying the waters. But maybe it's worth teaching yourself alternative pleasures."

"That," Justin said, "is the unsexiest proposal I've ever had." It was funny because it wasn't. No one propositioned him. Everyone in the Family knew who he was, and that he meant trouble, even if they didn't know the sordid specifics.

Grant might be oblique, but he wasn't stupid. He had to know exactly what he was offering. And Justin wasn't twelve anymore; was aware that Grant had availed himself of the training for azi. Justin himself had signed off on it, with a residual pang of jealousy. Hadn't inquired further, electing to afford Grant this small bit of privacy.

Justin had not expected--this.

Grant was still looking at him, azi-vulnerable. A Supervisor should never, ever forget; should never stress his azi. But even with Grant's open reminders, the on-again off-again debates regarding the differences between CITs and azi, Justin caught himself thinking of Grant as someone who hadn't been designed. Circumstances had stressed the proper relationship between them. They were more than brothers to each other, more than Jordan or Ariane had ever intended. He couldn't--entirely--regret it.

"It doesn't have to be me," Grant said. Sincere. "But it should be _someone_." A beat. "Julia Carnath--"

"Don't even joke about that!" But Grant was laughing, and so was he. So was he. "Don't be stupid, _who else_ would it be--"

Justin's heart was racing. Tape-flash, tape-flash, the sensation of falling through a soft infinite space. His body reacting.

Maybe--just maybe--Grant was right.

He'd thought about Grant in guilty snatches, on and off. Why wouldn't he? Grant was aesthetic in the extreme, and he was always around, if not precisely available.

At least, not until now.

Grant held his hand out. Justin clasped it, told himself to stop shaking. That worked as well as it ever did.

"Should I call you 'ser'?" Grant said, the corners of his mouth lifting.

Justin scowled at him. "Don't you start."

Grant laughed again. Leaned back. "Come and get me, then."

Justin recognized that Grant was going to invite him to make the first move, the opposite of how it had gone with Ari. Even dead, she orchestrated everything in his bedroom, wasn't that ironic? What the hell. He'd give it a try.

* * *

"Please tell me it was good," Grant said, after. "I'd hate all that training to have gone to waste." His voice was sleepy, and beyond that, sated.

Justin admired Grant's physique, on display for his delectation. He was spent. They both were. But this time--this one time--the clean residual warmth of arousal he felt was his own, _his own_ , and not something that Ari had planted in him with the aid of kat. He hoped so, anyway.

"Was it--" He didn't know what to say. _Did you enjoy it?_ Unfair question to ask an azi. Even an azi who was Grant.

This time it was Grant who brandished a cushion. "Don't make me do it all over again."

"Since you're offering--"

Grant was as good as his promise, that night and many afterward.


End file.
